


Then Listen Close To Me

by abcooper



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5760124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cat Grant is thrilled when Carter comes home excited about a new friend at school, until she realizes that the Kara he keeps talking about isn't his classmate, but the new student-teacher in his classroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

“So how was school today?” Cat asked casually, twirling zucchini pasta around her fork. It wasn’t a question she usually asked; if Carter had something to tell her about school, he would do so without prompting. He wasn’t fond of being asked purposeless questions - that was a trait they shared. But he was being unusually silent tonight, staring deeply into his dinner plate as though it contained answers to all the mysteries on his 12 year old mind, and Cat wanted to know why.

Carter remained silent for a few moments, processing the question and considering his answer, before he mirrored her casual tone. “It was nice - I made a friend in class today.”

He didn’t glance at her as he said it, but Cat was still careful to contain any expression of surprise or pleasure. Carter had been at his new school for four weeks, and this was the first he’d mentioned of bonding with any of his classmates. She knew he was tensed for her reaction.

“That’s nice.” she murmured approvingly, and made herself eat a few more forkfuls before she prompted, “what’s his name?” 

“It’s a girl, her name is Kara.” With that the floodgates opened. “She’s really great, Mom - we did all the reading together for History Book Club, and she said she thought my opinions were very insightful. She has blonde hair. It’s really long and she wears it pulled back in a ponytail. And she has glasses like you and she smiles all the time, I think she’s the nicest person I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, I see! Is she pretty, Carter?” Cat asked with a little parental smirk - apparently he’d decided to skip making friends and gone straight for middle school romance. Well, he’d always been precocious.

“Mom!!” He looked shocked. “It’s not like that at all. Although she is very pretty. And she’s good at science.”

The rest of dinner might as well have been the Kara News Hour, and Cat listened with the patience that she had only for her son and juicy interviews. Finally she had to interrupt, sending him off to do his homework while she cleared the dishes into the sink, where the housekeeper would take care of them first thing in the morning. That taken care of, she settled into the leather chair in her study with a set of layouts and tried to put her mind to the task. 

The price of dinner at home every night with her son was that the work had to come home with her, and it was a price she paid gladly, but she found that she was struggling to focus, her mind drifting back to Carter and his excitement. She wanted to be thrilled that he had a new friend, but part of her stayed uneasy. It was so rare - unheard of, really - for him to feel connected to someone at school. If it went awry, the letdown would be equally consuming for him, she was sure.

And why was this girl suddenly popping up now, a month into the school year? There were only 14 students in Carter’s class, and Cat didn’t remember a Kara amongst them. Perhaps the girl had recently moved to town, or had just transferred schools? It would be nice to know the lay of the land, so to speak - it was hard to predict what kind of emotional roller coaster might be coming with so little information.

At 12, Carter was a bit too old for Cat to set up playdates anymore, but that didn’t mean there was no room for motherly intervention at all. She would call the school tomorrow, see what information she could get on the child, and perhaps suggest to Carter that he could invite his new friend over after school one afternoon.

Thus resolved, she put the matter aside and focused on her layouts, determined to get them done before she went to say goodnight to her son.

 

~

 

“What do you mean, there’s no Kara in his class?” Cat demanded. Her latest assistant had just started to enter her office, but upon hearing the murderous tone to his boss’ voice, he wisely backed out again. Cat watched him go and resolved to fire him anyways - her latte had been room temperature this morning, and she couldn’t stand people who flinched from her as though she might at any moment go for their eyes. Not that she could fault their survival instincts.

“I’m very sorry ma’am, but we don’t have any Kara registered in the 7th grade.” the long-suffering secretary on the phone repeated. “In fact, I don’t think there’s a Kara anywhere in the school - we have a 5th grade Karoline, but that’s the closest... oh! Could you mean our new student teacher? She’s working with a 7th grade class, I believe her name is Kara Danvers.” 

“A student teacher.” Cat repeated flatly. “Kara Danvers.” She abruptly flashbacked to Carter’s description of how “Kara” had helped him with the school reading and had a brief urge to smack her head against her desk. 

Or to eviscerate the woman on the other end of the phone line. It was healthy to find an outlet for these emotions, wasn't that what her therapist kept telling her?

She reminded herself that, 5 figure tuition or no, it could do no harm for her to stay on good terms with her son’s school administration, and put on the sweet voice that she usually saved for sexist board members. “Well, thank you very much for your time, Ms Daly, I appreciate the information.”

Hearing the difference in her tone, her assistant dared to poke his head back around the glass partition as she hung up the phone, manila folder in hand, and Cat let a predatory smile cross her face.

“Aaron.”

“Actually, it’s Eric, ma’am.”

“Is it?” She tilted her head at him and widened her eyes. He looked terrified.

“Aaron’s fine.”

 “Come in, Aaron. Let’s chat.”

 

~

 

Cat didn't actually meet Kara until parent teacher conferences, but she heard about her every night over dinner. It was the most she’d ever heard from Carter about school, the fastest he had ever adjusted to a new environment. Cat had pulled him out of his last school because of bullying, and although she privately credited the smaller class sizes more than the teaching assistant for Carter’s improved experience, it was nice to see him light up as he spoke, instead of shrinking into himself like he so often had the year before. 

Conferences were scheduled 8 weeks into the new semester. Cat walked in on a Thursday night, coming straight from CatCo, and let Carter lead her to his home room. Green Gardens Middle School was a new age building, with glass ceilings at odd angles to let in the light, and open wall-less classrooms sprouting off the hallway to reveal other teachers sitting casually on cushions as they met with parents. Cat had liked that when she and Carter toured the school last summer - in such an open space, nothing was happening outside a teacher’s eye.

Carter’s classroom was down a ramp and around a corner. Another family was exiting as they arrived. The father looked grim as he strode out, and the dark haired boy muttered a quiet, “good luck, man - she’s not pulling her punches.” to Carter as he walked by. Carter didn't respond verbally, but he smiled an acknowledgment at the floor and his classmate seemed to take that in stride, hurrying after his father without further conversation. 

A tall woman with gray hair and tired creases around her eyes looked up as they entered the space and stood from behind her desk to greet them. “Good evening, Miss Grant - I’m Ms Lieman, please have a seat and we’ll get started.” She didn't acknowledge Carter at all and he didn't acknowledge her either, staring fixedly at the floor. Hackles already starting to rise, Cat took one of the hard seats that had been lined up in front of the desk and Carter followed suit, settling quietly into the other one. 

“As I'm sure you’re aware, Miss Grant, Carter is a very intelligent child, more than capable of the work we set in this class.” Ms Lieman started off, still apparently unaware that Carter was in the room listening.

Cat smiled and answered in her silkiest tone - the one that would have had employees scrambling to get out of her line of sight. “Yes, of course - Carter has always been very academically gifted, haven't you Carter?” He shot her a startled look, or maybe a pleading one. Ms Lieman did not appear to comprehend the danger, pushing relentlessly forward.

“My concern is that despite his intelligence, Carter consistently fails to complete his classwork in a timely manner. He is often unfocused in class, or even unwilling to do the work - and he is at times extremely disrespectful towards me and towards his classmates. In short, Miss Grant, Carter has an attitude problem, and unless he begins to address it, it is going to hinder his academic progress.”

She paused triumphantly, waiting for Cat’s response to this dire pronouncement. Cat looked at her fixedly and let the silence hold until Ms Lieman grew uncomfortable in it, fidgeting in her chair like an overgrown child.

 “What I mean,” she started again, and Cat cut her off by holding up her hand.

“I was not inviting you to continue, Ms Lieman.” She assured the other woman softly. “I am merely considering how to respond to such a show of incompetence, in light of what Green Gardens promises me in return for my tuition money.”

“Is Kara going to be here tonight?” Carter spoke suddenly, and louder than he usually managed in front of anyone other than his mother - clearly in a desperate bid to divert her attention before she went in for the kill.

Ms Lieman didn't seem to appreciate his rescue tactics, judging by the way her lips thinned as she glanced at him. Even in direct response to his question, she spoke to Cat, not to Carter, as she explained, “we have a student teacher with us four days a week, Kara Danvers. Unfortunately she has her graduate class on Thursday evenings, and I don't think she’ll make it back here before I must move on to my next student. It's a lengthy train commute." 

Cat breathed out deeply once through her nostrils, and reminded herself firmly that there were more satisfying ways to take revenge upon this stupid useless woman than outright murder.

“Carter, I wonder why Ms. Lieman addressed her answer to me, when you're the one who asked the question.” She mused lightly instead. "It seems rude to talk around someone like that, doesn't it?"

Before she could take her point any further, a tousled blonde woman came rushing into the room at too breakneck a pace for dignity, jerking to a halt by the desk and beaming at the three of them. “Carter! I'm so glad I made it in time for your meeting, I raced here from class, I've been dying to meet your mother.”

She turned that enormous goofy smile onto Cat, holding out her hand in greeting. “It's a pleasure, Miss Grant - I feel like I already know you, Carter is always sharing your good advice with me when I need it.”

“Mom, this is Kara. Kara, this is my mother, Miss Grant.” Carter announced politely, though Cat had somehow come to that conclusion on her own.

It was hard to believe that this bouncy perky girl was the superhero Carter had been describing over and over and over again - if she'd ever walked through the doors of CatCo, Cat was sure she would have chewed her up and spit her out again by mid-morning. 

Still. She had addressed Carter directly, which already put her well ahead of the other moron in the room, and it was clear that Kara, at least, understood that Carter was the furthest from having an attitude problem that it was possible to be.

“Nice to meet you, Ms Danvers.” Cat said, and out of respect for her son and for the long hours that she had already lost to hearing about Kara’s homespun classroom wisdom,  she made an effort to sound sincere. The girl’s eyes lit up with ludicrously genuine delight, so she must have been successful.

“Carter is such a wonderful student to have, Miss Grant.” she gushed. “He’s so kind and thoughtful, he comes out with the most amazing insights about the books we read - honestly, I hope every class I ever teach has someone like him!”

  
“Yes, he’s always been a thoughtful person.” Cat agreed beatifically. “Do you find that he sometimes struggles to complete his work?” Her sharp eyes did not miss the nervous way that Kara glanced over at Ms. Lieman before answering.

“Carter and I have talked about that. Carter, do you want to share what we talked about with your mother and Ms Lieman?” Kara asked encouragingly.

“I don’t mind if you do.” Carter answered quietly, and Ms Lieman gave a little snort, as though he was living down to her expectations. With ferocious amounts of self control, Cat ignored her and focused her attention on Kara.

“Alright, but feel free to step in if I’m not saying it right, OK?” Kara snagged a chair and pulled it up to the side, settling in. “Carter and I were talking about how sometimes when he has a long list of things to do - like, say, a set of math problems - and a limited amount of time in which to do them, he gets so anxious about completing the work that it’s hard for him to focus on one thing and get started. We’ve been working on solutions - one thing Carter does sometimes is cover the rest of his page with a blank sheet of paper, and try to set himself a specific goal - ‘in 5 minutes, I will have this math problem done.’ We’ve also talked about how if he _doesn’t_ finish the work on time, it’s OK if he has to take some of it home and finish it for homework. Reminding himself of that can be a way to take some of the pressure off.” 

“And holding a parent-teacher conference about how unfinished work makes him an objectively bad person might be a way to load some of the pressure right back on?” Cat suggested, raising one sculpted eyebrow. She wasn’t sure who looked more uncomfortable - Ms Lieman, Kara, or Carter.

“It was not my intention to give offense, Ms Grant.” Ms Lieman said, recovering after a pause. “We’re all on the same team here, and that’s Carter’s team. Since Carter is unwilling to speak to me, I can only give you my observations about his classroom performance. Since Kara has seen a different side of him, it’s fortunate that she was here to share her observations as well. Now, I’m afraid our 20 minutes are up and I must meet with my next student…”

Cat was distracted on the way out, but not so distracted that she forgot to ask, “who was that boy on the way in? He seemed to like you.”

Carter smiled at the ground in response. “That’s Jamie, we do math together. Kara asked me to help him stay focused, he gets distracted a lot.”

Despite herself, Cat smiled. If there was one thing that had always broken Carter out of his shell, it was his desire to help others. If Kara could read that and tap into it, then she might even be halfway competent. It was nice to think that _someone_ in that overpriced hovel of a school was.

That night, she lulled herself to sleep planning the cutting email that Carter’s principal would receive from her in the morning.

 

~

 

Four days later, Carter’s principal had entirely failed to fire that idiotic woman who was meant to be an educator of children, and on top of that, Derek Patterson, the art director for CatCo’s highest selling magazine, broke his leg and decided that that somehow justified taking an entire two _weeks_ off work.

Cat didn’t consider herself to be an unreasonable person. She not only allowed, but encouraged her employees to stay home when they were sick or otherwise unable to perform their jobs. What she did _not_ encourage was for her employees to have delusions of grandeur and run their departments in a way that made them irreplaceable. It had already become very apparent that Patterson wasn’t bothering to keep any kind of second-in-command informed about his overarching plans or designs, and the result was that the draft layouts the art department had actually _dared_ to lay upon her desk that morning were a jumbled, incoherent mess. 

Which meant that it was 9 o’clock at night, Cat had just said goodnight to her son over the phone instead of in person, and there was no end to her workday in sight. 

“Alicia!” she shouted without bothering to look up. “Draft an email to Patterson telling him not to bother coming back to work. And run and get me a latte before you leave for the evening.”

Nothing but silence greeted her, and after a beat she remembered that, 1 - the latest assistant’s name was actually Allison, not Alicia, and 2 - Allison had quit on the spot that morning after Cat had been _a little impolite_ while she was frustrated with Patterson’s stand-in. The girl had no backbone.

Cat stood from her desk and took a moment to let her spine pop back into place, almost groaning at the sensation. The office was empty, and she abandoned the idea of surviving the night on that horrible brown pond-muck that the office kitchen tried to pass off as coffee. A walk down the block to get her own latte might clear her head and give her a chance to stretch her legs.

Riding the elevator down, and stepping out alone into the night air, it occurred to Cat suddenly that she was feeling discouraged - not a state of being with which she had a great deal of patience.

She was worried about her son, and about his wretched teacher who thought that the way he existed was somehow wrong, and about a world that might agree with her. She was worried about her own priorities, and about the nights she missed dinner and good-night because of magazine layouts.

She barely noticed the walk across the street into the small coffee shop that sat diagonal to CatCo’s offices, until her unhappy musings were cut short by the sight of a familiar face behind the counter:  Kara Danvers, of all people, with her brow furrowed in concentration as she ran a highlighter through a low-quality printed scan of some academic looking article.

“Kiera, right?” Cat drawled, amused when Kara give a shocked little squeak as her head bolted up. It wouldn’t do to let Kara know that her name was a regular occurrence in Cat’s dinner conversation.

  
To her surprise, Kara didn’t correct her, just gave her a friendly smile. “Miss Grant! It’s wonderful to see you again, what can I get for you?”

“A latte, hotter than you’re legally allowed to serve it.” Cat said, and then regarded her consideringly. “And whatever you like to drink.”  
  
Kara looked startled. “Are - are you offering to buy me a coffee, Miss Grant?”  
  
“I am. At a price. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about my son.” 

Kara looked hesitant, but Cat Grant hadn’t founded a multibillion dollar corporation by being easy to refuse, and within minutes she and Kara were seated at a small table near the door, drinks in hand.

“What did you want to talk about, Miss Grant?” Kara asked - she kept glancing at the door, ready to bounce up if another customer entered the shop. It made her look as though she had a nervous twitch.

“You and Ms Lieman offered me very different accounts of my son’s classroom performance the other night.” Cat said blandly, and then waited for Kara to fill the silence - one of her favorite interviewing tricks.

“Miss Grant, I’m really sorry about that. Ms Lieman let me know that I overstepped my bounds in your conference, and I want you to know that that was never my intention, really, it’s just that I know Carter has never really felt entirely comfortable around Ms Lieman, so I wanted to be sure that -”

 “Kiera.” Cat cut off the fountain of words. “I’m not asking you for an apology. If I was unhappy with you about something, believe me,” she paused to put weight behind the words, “you’d know.” She took a sip of her latte - hot enough to burn through metal - and let Kara digest that for a moment before continuing. “We both know that what you were saying about Carter was right on the money, and that Ms Lieman is a bitter old hack whose pedagogical strategies reach back to before classrooms had electricity.” 

And, reading between the lines, the old cow had read Kara the riot act for daring to contradict her. Since Kara had apparently gotten in trouble for the sake of her son, Cat decided to offer her a piece of helpful advice. “I understand the instinct to avoid making waves when you’re at the bottom of the ladder, but it will never get you anywhere to apologize for being right. Stand behind your actions and take the consequences, good or bad - people will remember that.” 

“Th-thank you, Miss Grant.” Kara answered. “But then, if that’s what you think, I’m not sure what it is you want to talk to me about.”

“I enrolled Carter in Green Gardens because he was being bullied at his last school.” Cat admitted frankly. “I personally count my blessings every day that Carter is quieter and more thoughtful than his neanderthal peers, and I would like to shield him for as long as possible from our cultural certainty that difference is inherently a deficit. If I have pulled him out of a place where he was receiving that message from the students, and instead dropped him into a school where he is receiving it from the _staff_ , then I am _somewhat concerned._ What I am asking for from you, Kiera, is an inside scoop - what exactly is the situation between my son and his teacher?” 

Kara looked deeply uncomfortable, but she visibly steeled herself to speak. “Miss Grant, Carter gets along very well at school with a classmate named Jamie, with his art teacher, and with me. He refuses to speak to Ms Lieman at all, and he has had the occasional brush at recess with one or two other students. When I asked him afterwards if he was alright, do you know what he said to me? He said, ‘my mother says that people like that are held in place by their own ignorance, and if I keep moving forward I’m going to leave them in the dust.’”

She leaned forward, catching Cat’s eyes in her earnest gaze. “Anywhere he goes, he is going to face situations where other people aren’t acting their best. I think you have to trust Carter to be the person you’ve raised him to be.”

“And I do.” Cat admitted, taken aback at hearing her own advice repeated back to her with such compassion and sincerity. She took a long sip of her cooling latte and regarded the girl across from her with new curiosity.

“What made you want to become a teacher, Kara?” she finally asked, and she wasn’t sure why, except that what she really wanted to know was why someone like Kara could look at her son and see the same things Cat saw, when so many others misunderstood him entirely. 

“I’ve always wanted to help people.” Kara admitted with a little smile. “I guess it’s just that when I first started middle school on Earrr...ned scholarship, I felt so lost and confused. I’d have given anything for someone to reach out to me and make an effort to understand where I was coming from. I like the idea of being able to do that for someone else.” She looked tired, for a moment. “Childhood is a hard time to be alone.” 

“What about your parents?” Cat asked, perhaps a bit more sharply than she intended. “Didn’t they make you feel understood?” Kara’s quiet reminiscence was hitting on exactly what Cat feared most - that the acceptance she could offer Carter at home was next to meaningless in the face of a wider, less accepting world.

“They died in an explosion when I was thirteen.” Kara answered, looking down at her coffee awkwardly for a moment, and Cat’s private worries were momentarily derailed as she stared in helpless consternation at the young woman across from her.

“I’m sorry.” she said finally, gentled by genuine sympathy.

“Don’t be. I mean, it was sad, I’m still sad about it sometimes. But my foster parents, the Danvers, were so amazing to me - they took me in and treated me like their own daughter, right from the start. In a way, that’s really what inspired me to become a teacher. I’ve been lucky to have so many people in my life who saw that I needed to be loved, and took that as a good enough reason to love me, no questions asked. It’s how I want to treat the rest of the world - the exact same way the Danvers treated me.”

Kara smiled at her, her eyes crinkling with warmth, and Cat admitted something to herself that she'd kind of already figured out - Kara’s kindness wasn't feigned, and it wasn't weak. Compassion and gentleness were Kara’s way of being strong.

  
“You’re an interesting person, Kiera.” she said honestly, and had the pleasure of watching Kara blush down to her roots.


	2. 2

The next assistant’s name was Carlos, and with him came a sternly worded email from HR about the additional costs that came with firing an assistant every week.

Cat was briefly tempted to fire him the moment he crossed the threshold, just to make a point about the chain of CatCo command, but she banished the urge, and instead deleted the email from her phone without even dignifying it with a response. Well. If firing assistants for bringing her cold coffee was too expensive, she would just have to get her own latte. There was no other reason for her change in routine, she told herself firmly. And when she walked into Noonan’s coffee shop and the girl behind the counter wasn't Kara at all, she wasn't the slightest bit disappointed. It wouldn't even make sense - obviously at 8 o’clock in the morning Kara would be at Carter’s school.

When not-Kara handed over her latte, it was already cooler than Cat liked it. She stalked into the CatCo elevator in a foul mood, and decided that regardless of what HR told her, she was going to yell at her assistant until she felt better about the day.

Things didn't improve from there.

First, there was the email from the financial departmentment. She looked through the numbers they had red flagged, then made Carlos find her the weekly financial reports for the past eight months. She went through them with a fine tooth comb, but there was nothing in them to find, and by lunch time she grimly admitted to herself, if not out loud to anyone else, that the National City Tribune might have outlived its profitable days.

“Get me a cheeseburger.” she demanded irritably of Carlos, and then thought about the gym night she had already missed that week and begrudgingly called him back and demanded a salad.

When her phone rang around 1pm, Cat was hit with a deep sense of foreboding even before she saw Carter’s school on the caller ID.

“Cat Grant speaking.” She answered crisply, and was proved prescient when Ms Daly’s voice came through the line.

“Miss Grant, there’s been an incident concerning your son. Would it be possible for you to come by the school?"

~

Cat slammed past Ms Daly into the principal’s office without waiting for permission and took a deliberate, visible moment to scan the room, analyzing the scene.

Carter was clinging to Kara like a limpet, silent sobs wracking his thin frame. Kara had a protective arm around his shoulder, and was aiming a low-key glare around the room as though she expected someone to try and pry him off. Cat spared a brief moment for intense, overwhelming gratitude that this random woman had been randomly assigned to work with Carter’s class. Sometimes the universe just got things right.

Ms Lieman had been sitting by the principal’s large desk, but had jerked to her feet when Cat entered the room, and now had a defensive, defiant look about her, already prepared for Cat to tear her version of events _apart._

The principal was still seated, a political smile fixed firmly to his face, as he prepared to do battle with his most difficult parent.

Sitting in another chair, with dirt and a deep scowl on his face, was Jamie, Carter’s math friend.

But Carter. Carter, the important part of the whole scene, hadn’t looked up when she entered the room. His shoulders had hunched together under her gaze, braced for impact, as though he thought that she was going to be mad at him, that she might not be on his side.

That needed to be rectified _immediately_.

  
“Mr. Pearson.” she greeted the principal coolly and didn’t wait for him to greet her in return. “Why, exactly, is my 12 year old child distraught in your office?”

“Miss Grant, thank you for making the time to come in this afternoon, please have a seat.” Mr. Pearson responded cordially. Cat smiled frostily at him and stayed standing.

“I doubt I’ll need to stay that long.” she assured him. _We’re going to do this my way with very little argument on your part_ was what she meant, and she was sure he understood it that way.

“Carter was involved in an incident this morning on the playground.” Pearson started smoothly, and Cat snorted delicately.

“Yes, an ‘incident’. Your secretary used that word as well.” she murmured scathingly

“He assaulted his classmates, is that a more clarifying turn of phrase?” Ms Lieman responded sharply, speaking for the first time. Cat was startled by the accusation, but she knew better than to let it show - or to believe it, from such a source. Carter wouldn’t attack another student, especially not unprovoked.

“Ms Pearson, that’s really not what happened.” Kara spoke up before Cat could, and her frustrated tone suggested that Kara had probably been saying as much for the past hour, and that it was falling on deaf ears.

“Why is my student teacher even present for this meeting?” Ms Lieman demanded of Mr. Pearson, jabbing an aggravated finger in Kara’s direction, and even Mr. Pearson looked taken aback by the level of venom in her tone.

“Maybe because unlike you, Kara actually saw what happened!” little Jamie piped up from his chair, and despite her own growing anger at the obvious bias Ms Lieman held towards her son, Cat had to be amused at the dramatic shitshow this meeting was turning into.

Jamie’s contribution to the conversation was obviously news to Mr. Pearson.  
  
“Ms Lieman, you didn’t actually see what happened?” he asked her, and the genuine surprise in his voice _slightly_ mollified Cat. At least her son was only dealing with one abuse of authority, not two.

“I saw the aftermath, and unlike _her_ , I know better than to coddle a couple of trouble-making delinquents that the school has labeled as ‘special’.” Ms Lieman fumed. Mr Pearson looked _mortified_ by the outburst, and Cat decided it was time to take control of the situation before anyone said anything worse in front of her sensitive son.

“Kara.” she spoke firmly. “Take Carter and Jamie back to class please - I see no reason why they need to be present for the rest of this conversation.”

Kara, whose priorities were clearly on the same page as Cat’s, did not even look to Mr. Pearson or Ms. Lieman for permission, she just nodded and gently ushered the two boys out the door.

Cat turned back to Mr. Pearson’s desk. “Now, I believe you have previously received my emails documenting my concerns about this woman’s attitude toward my son…”

~

A few days later, Cat had good reason to be in a much improved mood - getting someone fired was always so satisfying. She was running a bit late to work, after dropping Carter off at school personally and stopping in to meet the new teacher they had hired, but she stopped into Noonan’s to get her own coffee anyways. For some inexplicable reason, she was developing a fondness for the place.

She took the moment in line to check her email, so she didn’t notice her barista until a familiar voice cut into her thoughts.

“Hello, welcome to Noonan’s, what can I - oh! Miss Grant!” she looked up sharply into Kara’s always-blinding smile. “Medium latte, hotter than I’m legally allowed to serve it?”

“Kiera.” Cat swept a puzzled, assessing glance over her, and saw Kara straighten out in response. “Why aren’t you in my son’s classroom?”

Kara looked uncomfortable. “Oh, uh, well - the school felt that I could have handled the, uhh, situation the other day more professionally. And, uh…”

“They fired you??” Cat demanded, perhaps a little more loudly than she intended. Several people turned to stare, and Kara turned a deep shade of red as she gave an unconvincing laugh.

“Well, fired might be the wrong word since they weren’t actually paying me, but yes, I have a little more time to pick up day-shifts around here. Which is nice, actually, I could use the money.” her voice had taken on a distinctly rambling tone by the end of that sentence, and Cat did her the favor of cutting her off with a look.

“They fired you for defending my son.” she repeated flatly, at a more reasonable volume. “Don’t worry, Kiera, I am going to call that smug incompetent waste of space the moment I get to my office, and -”

“Oh, please don’t, Ms. Grant!” Kara interrupted her anxiously. “It’s not a big deal, really. My program understands that it’s not my fault, but I really don’t think it’ll do me any favors to make them hear my name again in the next week…”

“Alright. Well.” Cat felt uncharacteristically helpless. She was grateful that Kara had been so willing to jump in when Carter needed her, it wasn’t fair that the girl would suffer any consequences for that. And then inspiration struck.

“If you’re looking for a better job than this, I happen to be interviewing right now for a new assistant.” she didn’t know what had possessed her to even suggest such a thing, except that Carlos had had the gall to quit by email last night, and the image of Kara’s smiling face greeting her every morning in the office was surprisingly appealing. Judging by the way Kara twinkled at her for the suggestion, she thought so too, but a moment later her mouth twisted into regretful dismissal of the idea.

“That sounds like an amazing opportunity, Miss Grant, but I think you deserve an assistant who isn’t going to crap out on you after two months. They’ll assign me to another school for student teaching as soon as we hit next semester, and I’ll be back to working evening hours only.” she capped Cat’s latte and handed it over, steaming hot. “I’m glad I’ll still get to see you coming in here for coffee, though - you can let me know how Carter’s doing, I’m going to miss him a lot.”

“He misses you too.” Cat admitted. Carter had been, for lack of a better word, pining all week. Inspiration struck. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? You two can catch up, you can eat something other than the instant ramen to which your coffee shop paycheck undoubtedly limits you…”

She expected Kara to try and wave the invitation off at least once - not that Cat was planning to take no for an answer. Surely 24 year old girls wanted to do more exciting things with their nights. But Kara absolutely lit up with delight, beaming at her as though Cat was giving her the world. “That would be so great, Miss Grant, I would love to.”

“Show up at 7:30 please.” Cat told her briskly, and wrote the address down on her latte receipt - as an afterthought, she included her phone number. Kara glanced at it and seemed to turn a little pink, but she was smiling, and Cat was oddly satisfied as she and her boiling latte made their way back to the office.

Her phone chimed in the elevator, and she glanced at it to see a text from an unknown number. ‘can I bring dessert?’

‘if it’s not chocolate, then it’s a waste of calories.’ she sent back, and then pocketed it, schooling her face into the careless disdain that her employees had come to expect.

~

Carter was over the moon. In the course of their afternoon phone call he asked her what they were serving for dinner six times, as though Maria, the housekeeper, hadn’t already made it and left in the fridge for them. By the time Cat made it through the front door just before 7:00, he had already spent 40 minutes carefully setting and resetting the table for three.

“She likes board games Mom, can we play a boardgame after dinner? I already have all my homework done.” were the first words out of his mouth.

“Of course we can, darling.” Cat agreed, giving him a warm hug, and pulled out her phone as she made her way upstairs.

‘If you cancel when Carter is this excited, I will disembowel you.’ she let Kara know, and went into her closet for something to wear to dinner. Her usual routine was to pull out something more comfortable and less formal than her professional clothes when she got home, so why did she find herself lingering over a low-cut dress that she knew made her cleavage look extremely appealing?

She gave in to her own whimsical notion and pulled the dress off the hanger, hearing her phone buzz against her bedspread as she did so.

Kara had texted her back a blurry photo of 3 individual chocolate cups filled with chocolate mousse and raspberries. ‘And eat these myself? I couldn’t possibly.’

‘you especially couldn’t post-disembowelment.’ Cat agreed placidly, and dug through her top drawer for the bra that went with the dress.

“You look nice, Mom.” Carter told her when she came back downstairs.

“Well, I thought I should match the lovely job you did decorating the table, dear.”

The doorbell rang, and Cat indulgently sent Carter scurrying off to answer it while she pulled Maria’s ginger quinoa dish out of the expensive gleaming refrigerator and dumped it back into a pan to reheat, take lids off the various containers of shrimp, avocado, and lime dressing that she was meant to pour over the top once it was hot.

When Carter led Kara into the kitchen a moment later, it must have looked as though Cat had been slaving away all day over a hot stove. Cat smirked a little at the thought - _high powered executive, perfect mother and housewife, and I can still kill this dress. Impressed, Kara?_

Kara did look impressed, and also a little stunned, her eyes lingering briefly at Cat’s plunging neckline before they made their way to Cat’s face, her cheeks charmingly flushed. Cat decided she was going to start keeping a mental tally of how often she could make Kara blush. For science.

“Hello, Kara.” she put a knowing little smirk on her face just to see if she could start her tally off strong. She wasn’t disappointed. Kara turned a deeper pink and held her dessert box in front of her like a shield.

“Hi Miss Grant. I, uh, took into account what you said about chocolate, these should probably go into the fridge until we eat them…”

“I got it.” Carter said, taking the box and putting it into the empty spot in the fridge opened up by the quinoa. “You know, you can call her Cat.” he added, a curious expression on his face. “You don’t work for her or anything.”

“I like to act as though the entire world works for me.” Cat assured them both airily, wondering what on earth was going through her son’s mind. “But yes, you can call me Cat if you like. I didn’t wait for permission to call you Kara, I suppose.”

“You mostly called me Kiera, actually.” Kara reminded her, laughter written across her face, and Cat didn’t dignify that with a response.

Dinner was an animated affair, as Carter extensively and enthusiastically filled Kara in on his latest elaborate theories about the new Star Wars franchise. Kara, for her part, was obviously genuinely interested in what Carter had to say, questioning him with equal enthusiasm and threatening to put him into a headlock for saying Rey wasn’t as cool as Luke.

Cat wasn’t an easily charmed person, but she had to admit that the two of them were sweet together. Something about Kara’s guileless happiness to be there, to be with the two of them, got under her skin. Sincerity was such a rare trait.

“Ahem.” she cleared her throat finally, and immediately Kara stopped threatening to dump quinoa down Carter’s shirt, Carter stopped egging her on, and they turned identical guilty looks in her direction, like a pair of golden retrievers caught shredding the newspaper. Cat’s lips twitched.

“Kara, do you have any family in town?” she asked in a pointedly polite voice, and then a moment later remembered what she already knew about Kara’s family and wanted to kick herself.

Kara didn’t look as though the question made her feel awkward at all. “My sister Alex lives about fifteen minutes down the road from here, actually - she’s great.” she said in a tone of voice that suggested her next words might be, ‘have you considered letting the Teachings of Alex into your heart?’

Carter looked shocked. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister! Is she older or younger than you?”

“Older… barely.” Kara answered with a grin. “She’s a scientist - you should meet her sometime, you two could talk engines.”

“Has she seen Maxwell Lord’s new train?” he asked, and Cat, recognizing a topic that could carry her son through the rest of the night, decided it was best to cut them off here.

“Carter darling, didn’t you want us all to play a boardgame after dinner? We’d better clear the dishes if you want to have time before bed.”  
  
Carter nodded and obligingly started to scoop up dishes, Kara followed suit, and they cleaned up rapidly - and more thoroughly than Cat usually bothered to do herself, happy to leave the small chores for Maria.

“Mom, can I change into my pajamas before we start playing?” Carter asked.

“Of course, dear - run and get changed and pick out a game, Kara and I will serve dessert.” Carter ran back, and Cat turned to look at Kara, who was washing dishes at the sink and smiling to herself slightly.

She was very striking, Cat noticed a little wistfully. Pretty in a healthy, mid-western sort of way. No one would ever describe her as elegant or fragile looking, qualities that Cat valued in the women she photographed for her magazines, but she must have drawn her share of attention nonetheless, with her clear eyes and kind smile.

Kara chose that moment to look up and catch Cat staring. She demonstrated the smile Cat had just been picturing, dropping the last plate neatly into the drainer. “Dinner was great, by the way - you were right, I don’t eat like that often.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Kara.” Cat responded in her most business-like voice, trying to brush away the quiet longing that was humming beneath her skin. Kara’s face fell slightly.

“Uh, listen, if you don’t want me to stay for a boardgame, I can make my excuses to Carter - I know he has school in the morning…” she stammered.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Cat answered sharply, exasperated with herself as much as with Kara for ruining the easy camaraderie of the evening. “If I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here, Kara. I’ve always been very good at getting the things I want.”

“Oh.” Kara was blushing again, and Cat added another mark to her tally. But then Kara looked her bravely in the eye and added, “I’m glad, then, that I’m something you want.”

Taken aback, Cat could only stare for a moment, wondering if it was her turn to blush. She was very grateful when Carter’s voice rang out from the other room - “Mom, I’m setting up Settlers of Catan!”

“We’ll be right out!” she called back and pulled Kara’s box out of the fridge, getting down three little bowls.

~

Kara kept darting little glances her way all through the game, although she didn’t let it interfere with her conversation with Carter. Or with her strategy - she creamed both of them.

Cat couldn’t help sneaking a few glances of her own, wondering just what Kara had meant to imply earlier. The whole evening had felt suspiciously date-like, she acknowledged to herself. Her dress, the way Carter had set the table, the chocolate mousse-cups… even the texts they’d exchanged could be read as having a mildly flirtatious tone. Kara was only 24 years old, though. And she was here to see Carter! Cat had invited her because of Carter!

Any other interpretation was ridiculous, obviously. Kara had simply meant that she was happy to be invited over.

“Mom, can Kara read me my next chapter before bed?” Carter asked after they’d cleaned up the game.

“Of course, dear.” Cat answered blithely, deliberately not turning to check with Kara that it was alright before she gave permission.

“What are we reading?” Kara asked, as she let Carter take her arm and lead her up the stairs.  Cat wondered if Kara knew how rare it was for her son to comfortably touch other people.

“Artemis Fowl! It’s great, we’re at the bit where…” his voice trailed off as they got to his bedroom, and Cat scooped up the mousse dishes, flicking the television onto a news channel behind her as she walked into the kitchen, more from force of habit than any actual interest in watching it.

She pulled out a bottle of white wine and a glass from the cupboard, hesitated a moment, and then grabbed a second glass, pouring a small measure into them both. It wasn’t a date, but Cat was feeling nonetheless reluctant to let Kara leave just yet.

She sat down on the couch, an ear on the news while she scrolled through emails on her phone. When she heard footsteps coming down the stairs she held out the other glass of wine without bothering to look up from a tirade she’d been CC’ed on by one of her art directors.

Kara took the wine and settled down on the couch next to her, and after a moment Cat snapped her phone off and looked over at her. Kara was already looking back, a soft expression in her eyes.

“Did Carter get off to sleep alright?” Cat asked quietly, although she knew the answer.

“He was out like a light after about 5 pages.” Kara confirmed with a smile. “I get the impression that we’re a little past his usual bed time.”

“Mmm, a bit.” Cat admitted. “He wakes up at the crack of dawn no matter what time he goes to bed, so the simplest solution was just to keep an early bedtime.” She didn’t add that the reason Carter bolted awake so early every morning was that he knew she would leave for work by 7, and he was insistent on eating breakfast with her before she left, come hell or high water. That part was private.

“Your relationship with him is so special.” Kara said with a smile, looking down at her wineglass. “It’s nice to watch.”

“It’s always been that way with us.” Cat said. “He doesn’t open up to many people, so the ones he’s close to have to matter a little more, do a little better by him.” she took a contemplative  sip of wine before admitting, “I’m glad that, for whatever reason, he decided to open up to you… even if the two of you are completely ridiculous together.” she gave Kara a pointed look, and Kara laughed a bit, crinkling her nose attractively.

“Yeah, well - he started it.” she defended herself. “And I’m getting the idea that he comes by it honestly. You’ve got a dramatic streak of your own, Cat. I saw you at the…” she trailed off.

“Kara?” Cat watched, concerned, as Kara’s face went ashen, and followed her gaze over to the television, which now showed an airplane hurtling through the sky at a dangerous looking angle.

“ - engine trouble on flight 237…” the news anchor was saying, and Cat automatically grabbed her phone off the table, knowing that she would need to call and direct the night staff through Catco’s response to the crisis.

“Kara, what’s wrong?” she asked sharply, turning the girl’s face toward her own with a gentle hand.

“My sister is on that plane.” Kara whispered, despair and panic warring in her eyes while the rest of her face stayed frighteningly blank.

Oh, god. “OK. Kara, listen to me - I am calling Catco’s news station _right now_ , and I am going to have the most updated information it is possible to have. Take deep breaths, everything is going to be alright.” Cat tried to sound authoritative, although she recognized with a sinking heart that things were very unlikely to be alright - the plane was headed straight for the heart of national city, it would be smashed before it had the chance to land.

But Kara was shaking her head no, placing her wine glass on the coffee table and getting to her feet. “I - I have to go.” she murmured, and with almost inhuman speed she was out the door.

~

Cat made the call to Catco, like she always did when there was a late night crisis, but there was a clench of more personal fear woven through her heart as she barked orders down the line.

She kept her eyes on the on-scene news reports the entire time, so she saw the same footage the rest of the city saw -  a girl, flying through the sky to grab the plane and pull it into a safe water landing.

And she saw the same pictures that the rest of the city saw, of the girl standing on the plane’s wing, soaking wet and triumphant.

But the rest of the city hadn’t had Kara Danvers in front of them, wearing that exact outfit, as she ate her chocolate mousse just minutes before. So really, what Cat Grant was seeing wasn’t what everyone else saw at all.

 


	3. 3

Cat paced back and forth in her office, cell phone in hand. She was aware that her employees could see her through the glass, and that her uncharacteristic behavior was making them nervous. Good. 

All anyone could talk about was the girl who’d saved the plane last night. It was on the news, it was on the radio, and it was on her staff’s faces as they waited expectantly for her to tell them where to run with it.

And she knew that they were right, even if  _ they  _ didn’t know it. This was  _ exactly  _ what Catco needed - this was what she needed to save  _ The Tribune _ . The entire city was wondering who had saved that plane, and Cat Grant was the only person who knew the answer. She should be personally writing up the exclusive now.

She didn’t want to.

She threw herself back into her desk chair and glared at her cell phone, where the few texts she’d exchanged with Kara were up on the screen.

‘Get up here. Now.’ she typed, and then bit the bullet and hit send before she could waver and start pacing again.

There was other work to get done that day, and Cat tried to focus on it. She needed to hire a new art director, and HR had sent her a short-list of candidates to consider. She was half-heartedly skimming it, most of her attention focused on her aggravatingly silent phone, when a name grabbed her and forced her to pay actual attention.

Why did Jimmy Olsen want to jump ship at The Daily Planet and come work for her?

She and Lois Lane had a professional rivalry - and alright, a personal one too, there was no denying that. The woman just rubbed her the wrong way. But they’d never resorted to corporate espionage. There was a puzzle here.

She was intrigued enough that she started composing an interview invitation for Olsen herself, rather than just handing his name back to HR, when her latest assistant - Jennifer? Jamie? Usually Cat was faking it when she didn’t know their names - knocked tentatively on her open door.

“Ms Grant, the front desk just called, you’ve got a Kara Danvers asking to see you…”

“Send her up.” Cat snapped, and took deep breaths. It was fine. She had a plan.

The assistant appeared again a minute later, escorting Kara Danvers into the office with a polite introduction.

“Thanks Jenna.” Kara said with a sweet smile. She was paler than usual, and Cat wondered if catching an airplane was exhausting work, even for people who could fly. She was also holding a coffee cup, which she offered to Cat with a smile.

“I brought you a latte.” she said a little uncertainly. “I thought you sounded kind of upset in your text? It’s not Carter, is it?” 

“Carter’s fine.” Cat assured her, taking the latte. It was, as expected, extremely hot. “How’s your sister?”

Kara winced. “She’s fine.” she muttered, looking fixedly at her shoes. Cat considered pushing at that unexpected reaction, and then decided to let it go - the rest of this conversation was going to involve enough pushing.

“Last night must have been very frightening for her. She’s lucky you were there.” she commented instead, her tone idle. Kara’s head shot up, eyes wide.

Bullseye. “Let’s go out on my balcony.” Cat suggested, giving Kara a knowing look. She sauntered out, letting Kara follow her. 

“Miss Grant, I’m not sure what you mean….” Kara started nervously the instant the door shut behind them. Cat rolled her eyes - she’d guessed that Kara would be this terrible at hiding anything.

“There’s a reason Superman has a suit.” she said, choosing to disregard lies that weren’t well-told enough to deserve her time. “It draws a line between the hero and the man. You can’t just rush back and forth between your regular life and acts of astounding heroism without drawing any distinctions. Your name will end up in the papers by next week.”

There was a momentary pause before Kara said, “you thought it was astounding?” She sounded shy, but pleased. 

“Well, not to me.” Cat clarified immediately, because she didn’t believe in giving if she wasn’t getting something in return. “But to regular citizens? To the people whose lives you saved? Yes, I’m sure you appeared extraordinary.” And Kara  _ was  _ extraordinary, obviously. She could fly. It wasn’t just that she was an unusually kind and giving person who wanted to dedicate her life to children like Carter, to seeing people who were used to going unseen. “Everybody loves a hero.” Cat murmured.

“Are you going to tell anyone it’s me?” Kara finally asked after a prolonged silence. 

Cat didn’t answer the question directly. “I have a deal to offer you.” she said instead, and Kara looked at her sharply. 

“A deal.” she repeated.

“Mmm. Yes. I want an exclusive relationship between you and Catco - we get photos, we get interviews, we control the image that you present to the world.” Outrage was blooming on Kara’s face, and Cat held up a hand to stop her outburst until she could finish. “What you get in return is some measure of control over the way we brand you to the public. The right to nix specific information before our stories go out.”

“And I get my secret kept. This  _ is _ blackmail, right Miss Grant?” Kara spat out, and there was undeniable hurt in her tone, along with the anger. 

“Oh Kara, don’t be stupid.” Cat snapped back. “Of course revealing your secret would be the better immediate strategy for Catco - the entire world would read that article. But I am trying to offer us both another option - something that will pay off for you in the long run. If you’re going to go flying around saving lives, people will pay attention! Having this kind of relationship with the press is safer for you.”

It was frustrating that Kara was too naive to see that Cat was doing the right thing by her. 

“I - I haven’t even done anything yet.” Kara said, subdued. “I mean - one plane. I could listen to Alex, I could stop now, and the interest would blow over. If I did that, would you out me to the world?”

“No.” Cat admitted. “I wouldn’t. But you couldn’t do that.” Kara was naive, she was young, and she was in over her head. But above all of that, she was a hero. She was always going to help people who needed it, even when it got her fired from her teaching job, even when it meant the world might destroy her. That was why she needed Cat on her side.

“No, I couldn’t.” Kara agreed, with a wistful little smile. “Thanks for - for seeing that about me. And for not publishing my name in this morning’s paper, I guess.”   


“Mmm, well - Carter would never have forgiven me.” Cat said. “He’s very fond of you.” She hated to use her son as a weapon, but there was no denying that it was effective - Kara smiled automatically at the mention of his name, and the tension between them lessened. Then she took a deep breath, and steered her face into grim determination.

“OK, interview. Are we doing that now?”

“Let’s start at step one.” Cat smiled. “You need a wardrobe change.”

\--

There were mishaps. Of course there were. (“The  _ millenial falcon _ !?” “I’m sorry, were you under the impression that I’d respond to mistakes with a friendly ‘you tried’ sticker?”) But overall, things seemed to be working out. Kara was tight-lipped about it, but Cat thought she had to be training with someone - she was getting better at fighting, and she was getting better _fast_. Oil spill aside, she was every bit the hero that National City needed.

“You should try to come by my office as Supergirl more, and as Kara less.” Cat reprimanded her one day when Kara, yet again, showed up in her office after her Noonan’s shift with a hot latte. “People are going to get suspicious.”

“They don’t think I’m Supergirl - I’d know, I have super-hearing, remember?” Kara grinned at her, all confidence. It was amazing what spending her free time flying around in a skin-tight suit had done for her ego, Cat mused wryly, taking a sip of her coffee.

Kara got her unknowing revenge as she continued, “They just think I have a crush on you.” Cat choked on the coffee, and Kara laughed, a bright cheery sound. “Don’t worry, your reputation is intact.” she assured Cat, mischief dancing in her eyes. “They’ve got some bets going on how long it’ll be before you eat me alive.”

“Do they?” Cat let a little mischief creep into her expression in return. “Well…” she reached out and took Kara’s hand into her own, running two flirtatious fingers along the palm to stroke up Kara’s wrist. “That won’t do at all - it’s not a good cover story if I don’t give you any reason to keep coming back.” she explained innocently, letting her eyes drift slowly down over Kara’s figure and then back up. Out amongst the desks, she heard a crashing sound.

Kara had frozen the moment Cat touched her - the only response she managed to Cat’s explanation was a slight choking sound, and Cat smirked at her. In the rush of business dealings and excitement between them lately, she’d all but forgotten the evidence that Kara might have been harboring a slight crush on her, pre-Supergirl. She was glad for the reminder. After all, why should Kara be the only one getting an ego boost out of this little adventure?

“Uhh…. am I interrupting something?” Cat turned to see James Olsen, newly hired on as her art director, looking bemused in her doorway.

“Not at all.” she assured him with the kind of smile that was guaranteed to let him know he was, in fact, interrupting. “Are those my layouts? Bring them in.”

He did, putting them on her desk and smiling politely. “Kara, right?” he asked. “We’ve chatted a few times when I came into Noonan’s for my morning tea.”

“Oh, uh - yeah, hi.” Kara managed with a mortifying little titter. Apparently going frozen at a touch from Cat didn’t mean that she was immune to James Olsen’s abs. Cat firmly pushed aside the spark of ill-humor that was naturally brought about by seeing her pet superhero embarrass herself over a man, choosing to focus instead on flipping through the folder Olsen had brought her.

“These are…. suitable.” she allowed, inexplicably disappointed not to have a reason to chew him out. “Kara, don’t you have some place to be?”

“Oh! I mean, aren’t we going to….” Kara trailed off helplessly, unable to cite Superhero business in front of Olsen, and Cat gave her a scathing look to indicate what she thought of Kara’s natural tact and cunning.

“I’ll walk you to the elevator.” Olsen offered, in a clear attempt to  _ rescue  _ Kara, of all things. It did not improve Cat’s mood in the slightest to see how eagerly Kara allowed him to shepherd her out of the office.

_ Come by later, I have actual work to do today.  _ she texted Kara, and then, after a moment’s thought, added,  _ thank you for the latte.  _ If she had competition for Supergirl’s attention, she  would just need to step up her game.

\--

Kara didn’t come back by her office at the end of the workday as Cat had expected, but she couldn’t wait. She packed up at 6:45 and headed home to have dinner with her son.

“Mom! Did you see that Supergirl put out a fire this morning?” Carter greeted her eagerly at the door with his ipad in hand, open to a Catco news bulletin.

“I did see - in fact I put the final edits on that story about it.” Cat pointed out dryly, nonetheless pulling him into a warm hug. “Supergirl _ is _ wonderful, isn’t she darling.”

It wasn’t until almost 11, when Cat was about to pull off her bathrobe and get into bed that the sound of flapping cloth made her look up, and she saw Supergirl touching down on her balcony.

Fastening the robe more securely around herself, Cat opened the door, posing in elaborate exasperation against the glass frame. “Well it’s about ti-” she started, and then cut herself off as she got a good look at Kara’s face. “What happened?” she asked instead, moving aside to let Kara in.

Kara looked  _ wrecked.  _ Her suit was torn, and there were already-fading bruises along her jaw, but it was the hard, clenched expression on her face that was alarming. Whatever had happened, Kara was only just holding it together.

“Sorry I’m late.” she said with an apologetic smile that almost approached normal. “It was a rough day at the office.” 

She took the hint in Cat’s pose and came inside, then stopped and looked awkward. On the two or three occasions that Supergirl had stopped by Cat’s apartment, they’d stayed out on the balcony. Kara would fill her in on the latest robbery stopped or bus saved, and Cat would have her exclusive quote for the morning paper. She didn’t think Kara had ever been inside her bedroom before.

“Why don’t you borrow some clothes and I’ll make us some tea.” Cat decided, digging in her drawers for a pair of expensive sweatpants and a stretchable tank top that should be able to traverse the ludicrous size difference between Kara and herself.

“I can drink tea in my suit.” Kara pointed out, looking dubious about the tank top’s abilities.

“If Carter wakes up and comes downstairs for a glass of water, I do  _ not  _ want to field questions about why Supergirl is in my kitchen wearing his ex-teacher’s face.” Cat answered firmly. Carter was not going to be fooled by an absent pair of glasses - not when she had once heard him spend a full 14 minutes describing the exact color of Kara’s eyes.

Downstairs, Cat put the kettle on to heat and rummaged through her cabinet for the tea that she was certain had to be in there somewhere, although she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done her own grocery shopping. She found it, unopened behind an equally pristine jar of organic all-natural coconut peanut butter. It was some fancy brand of organic white jasmine tea that had probably been the most expensive one on the shelf at Whole Foods. Cat didn’t drink tea. She liked coffee to energize, and alcohol to numb - she wasn’t in the business of being soothed.

But Kara seemed like someone who would respond well to soothing, and somehow she’d signed up for the role of Superhero Babysitter, so here she was, skeptically dropping silky triangular tea bags into mugs and pouring steaming water over the top. Well, she'd wanted to have an adventurous life.

The sound of quiet feet padding up behind her made her turn. The borrowed tank top and pants clung to Kara’s every muscle and curve, outlining her even more intimately than the super-suit, but it was hard to get distracted by that when it was topped by Kara’s lost, over-drawn face. Wordlessly, Cat handed her a mug and led her into the living room, onto the same couch where they’d watched the plane go down.

“What happened?” she asked again, and Kara took a long sip of her tea, unheeding of the fact that the water should have burned her throat.

“My aunt’s alive.” she said finally, her tone one of quiet grief. “I thought she died with my planet, but…. she’d been sent off-world, right before.”

They’d established early-on that Kara was from Krypton, and that Superman was her cousin, but Kara had been reticent to speak of her personal history, and Cat had let it go, content with exclusive quotes on the heroics Kara was performing in the current day.

“Your aunt…. Superman’s mother?” Cat tried. When you had limited information, you started with questions based on whatever you knew.

“No. My mother’s twin sister, my Aunt Astra.” Kara answered absently, staring into her cup. “We were - we were close when I was a child. She didn’t have any children of her own... I think maybe she couldn’t. So she doted on me, a bit.”

“But Superman was a baby when Krypton exploded.” Cat said, puzzled not for the first time by the timeline of these past events. “And you’re even younger than he is…”

“I’m older than Kal-El, actually.” Kara answered, and Cat silently repeated the name to herself, Kal-El, so she wouldn’t forget it. “I was thirteen when Krypton exploded. My ship wasn’t far enough away from the explosion, and I got knocked off course. I slept for 24 years before I was knocked free and landed here.”

Cat laid a gentle hand on Kara’s shoulder, rendered mute by sympathy, and Kara finally looked at her, bestowing a grateful smile on her for the gesture. “It’s alright - I’ve had 11 years since then to grieve and move forward. I loved my family, and I loved my world, and I loved my friends - but they’re gone, and I have a new family and a new world to love. And this one, I have the power to protect.”

“You do.” Cat agreed. “But they’re not all gone - your aunt is alive?” It was clear from everything Kara had said and done that this was  _ not  _ wonderful news, but she hadn’t yet said why.

“She kidnapped Alex.” Kara said, almost in a whisper. She sounded ashamed. “She hurt my sister. At least when my family was  _ dead  _ I could remember them with love, I could - I could remember their warmth and their grace and let all the flaws fade into the past.” Cat squeezed the shoulder she was still holding onto and Kara leaned gently into the contact, but didn’t stop - as though now that she’d started, she had to keep going until it ran out.

“I haven’t seen their faces in 35 years. No photographs, no holograms, nothing but my memory. When I first got here, Alex gave me her sketchbook and I tried to get them down. I’d never really liked drawing at home, but on Earth it was like a race, to become enough of an artist that I could capture everything before the details faded from my memory. I’d sit there sketching my mother’s face, trying to get it just right, and I’d think ‘if only I could  _ look  _ at her one more time, this would be easy.’ But there was nothing left of her, and there was no one to remember it but me.

“And then tonight I saw my Aunt Astra right in front of me, saw her face again… right before she punched me through a wall.” Kara gave a watery little laugh. “It’s so contradictory, but - there’s this part of me that wishes she’d stayed dead, so I could just remember them all however I want, and reality couldn’t ever touch it.

“But then there’s this other, even  _ worse  _ part of me, that doesn’t even  _ care _ that Astra almost killed my sister. A part of me that’s so grateful not to be  _ alone _ anymore, that I could forgive her for anything. How can I feel that way? I love Alex so much - how can I not hate Astra for hurting her?” 

Kara’s bare feet stuck out from under her, her legs curled under herself, and she looked so lost, drowning in Cat’s leather couch. Cat pulled demandingly on her shoulder and re-situated them so that Kara’s head was resting on her shoulder. It was a position that she and Carter had sat in on this couch a thousand times. Cat was not a nurturing person - her instinct was to push people away, to push them forward. But for Carter she had learned how to do it, and for Kara, she could put those lessons to use.

“You feel guilty.” she said bluntly, and felt Kara nod slightly against her. “You think that to be a real hero, everything you think and everything you feel has to be righteous and good. That’s useless. You’re going to feel the way you feel, and you have the right to those feelings - they’re yours, they’re not for anybody else. Your actions may be for the world, Kara, but the things that happen in your head - those are just for you, and they can be whatever you need.” Hot liquid dripped onto her neck and ran down her collar, and despite her firm tone, Cat reached up to run a gentle hand down Kara’s cheek, catching the tears.

“You can be glad that your murderous Aunt is around doing damage, and that you’re not the last Krytonian standing. You just have to stop her anyways.” 

“I’m going to. I’m going to do whatever it takes.” Kara answered. She shuffled in, pressing up even more firmly into Cat’s side, and Cat allowed it, since she’d been the one to start this ridiculous cuddle-fest in the first place. Give a superhero an inch, and they’d take a mile.

They stayed that way for awhile, lost in their own separate thoughts, until Cat realized that Kara’s breathing had slowed, and that her body had relaxed against Cat's. Carefully, she maneuvered herself out from under Kara’s deceptively heavy form, arranging her into a more comfortable position on the couch. Kara didn’t stir - her eyes didn’t even flicker. For a moment Cat considered waking her up - who knew if Supergirl had somewhere else she was supposed to be tonight? It hadn’t escaped her notice that Kara was  _ clearly  _ answering to someone.

But the pained lines of her face were faded in sleep, and she was breathing so evenly. Cat tossed a blanket over her and decided that the world could wait. 

Now all she had to do was come up with a story she could tell Carter tomorrow morning about why Kara Danvers was sleeping on their couch.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK I am the worst. I got distracted. I should finish stories BEFORE I start posting them on the internet.

 

“Mom. _Mom.”_

Groaning, Cat reluctantly opened her eyes and then yelped and threw herself backwards when Carter’s face swam into view _one centimeter away._

“Jesus, Carter, it’s …. 5 o’clock in the morning.” she muttered, glimpsing the clock. “Remember our rule? No knocking before 6.”

“Mom, _Kara Danvers is asleep on our couch._ ” he whispered in awestruck tones, unheeding of her scolding.

“Oh… yes, she had to stop by last night, darling.” Cat answered, falling into wakefulness with a thud. “She… well, that is, she was in the neighborhood, so she stopped by for tea, and she fell asleep.”

“Can she stay for breakfast? Can we make waffles?”

Cat spared a moment to be grateful that her son was too excited to linger on her lie, and then moved on to the important issue at hand. “I think we could manage waffles, darling. After all,” she sent a resentful glance toward her clock, “we have plenty of time.”

The smell of coffee and waffles didn’t rouse Kara, and neither did the excited chatter that Carter couldn’t seem to shut off. He was rarely like this anymore and Cat reveled in it, humming contentedly into her coffee and listening to him as he delivered a running commentary on everything he wanted Kara to do and say when she woke up.

“She might want strawberries on her waffles, do we have any? She likes strawberries, she had them in her lunch almost once a week when she worked in my class, which is a lot really when you think about it, because they go bad quickly, so it must mean that she was buying them almost every time she went grocery shopping, to have them _every_ week. She likes sweets too, I think, even though we’re not allowed to have them at school. I saw her sneak a donut out of her bag once.”

“If you only caught me once, I did alright.” Carter and Cat jumped in tandem at the sleepy voice from the doorway. Kara was leaning against the frame, grinning at them. Her hair was tousled, and Cat’s borrowed tank top was riding up her stomach to reveal a strip of tan, toned abdomen.

Cat felt like her heart had stopped.

“Kara!! I’m so glad you came over, you should spend the night here all the time! Do you want coffee?” Carter took her by the hand and pulled her into the kitchen, seating her at the table and pouring her a mug of Cat’s expensive dark roast with an intensely motherly air.

Kara shot a bemused glance in Cat’s direction. “Thanks Carter - is there any sugar for this?” Cat made a private bet with herself that Kara was going to add a truly disgusting amount of it to her cup. She was not disappointed.

It was…. nice, having Kara around for breakfast. She was unreservedly excited about waffles and ate 4 of them without pausing for breath, while Carter tried vainly to keep up. Cat sat back and drank her coffee, content to watch the gentle, playful way that Kara interacted with her son without really contributing.

“Mom, can Kara take me to school today?” Carter asked as they cleared plates into the kitchen.

“Well, I don’t know her schedule sweetheart, she may need to get to work…” Cat hedged.

“Kara?” Carter turned his large eyes onto her to good effect - Kara looked ready to melt. “You could come say hi to Jamie and everyone, they all miss you…”

“Oh, uh - maybe another time, Carter. I think I’d better head home pretty soon, I don’t have a change of clothes here ... “ Kara admitted, pulling down nervously on the tank top that, Cat had to admit, would be inappropriate to wear into a school building. Well, she would know - she’d certainly taken a long leisurely look over her coffee.

“Why don’t we head out now. Kara can come in the car with us to drop you off at least, Carter, and then I can drop her by her apartment.” Cat suggested, pushing away the thought that she was becoming a lecher in her old age.

Kara opened her mouth to agree, and then cocked her head, listening. Weeks of playing Supergirl’s support team and PR department had made Cat intimately familiar with that expression.

“Oh, that’s right, you told me you needed to go to your sister’s house this morning.” she declared smoothly, intercepting the awkward, fumbling lies that were clearly about to spill out of Kara’s mouth. “Well, we’ll be sure to do this again soon, but Carter needs to get dressed for school and I’m sure Alex is waiting for you. Carter, go get dressed please. Chop chop!”

Carter was looking at her oddly, but he said his goodbyes did as he was told. Kara sent her a deeply grateful look over Carter’s shoulder as they hugged, and was gone the moment they heard the door close to his room. Cat shook her head and went upstairs to get dressed herself. The clothes Kara had borrowed were neatly folded on her bed; something about seeing them there filled Cat with a soft ache in her chest that she didn’t know how to categorize or dispel - she could only ignore it and carry on.

~~

She didn’t see Kara again that day, but she did make the final edits to a story about the six car pile-up that Supergirl cleared on the highway that morning. Thanks to a steady stream of exclusives, CatCo was _the_ source for Supergirl-related news.

There were other things to think about anyways - important things that definitely trumped the lingering memory of a scantily clad Kara Danvers pressed up against her on the couch.

For one thing, Thanksgiving was coming up and Cat’s mother had been threatening to actually make an appearance this year.

“When can Kara come over again?” Carter asked her over dinner that night, and Cat smiled at him and answered honestly:

“Soon, I hope, sweetheart. She’s very fun to be around, isn’t she?” Everything would be fine, as long as she didn’t think too hard about why she meant it.

The next day it became very easy not to think about Kara at all, because The Tribune was being audited. It turned out that Collins, the financial director for the past _two years_ , hadn’t understood his predecessor’s filing system and had been bluffing his way through record-keeping for his entire tenure. The result was a tangled mess of paperwork that could easily end up costing CatCo the Tribune’s entire yearly budget, and Cat was so busy trying to save the situation that she didn’t even have time to start filing charges against the criminal idiot responsible.

When Kara texted her in the late afternoon to say, _‘I beat up Superman’s nemesis today, want to hear about it?’_ she didn’t have time to shoot off more than a fast, ‘ _busy. Talk to my writing staff.’_

It was a surprise when, four hours later, her assistant brought Kara into her office anyways.

“I brought you a latte.” Kara said, setting a paper cup down on the desk in front of her. A slightly crumpled paper bag followed it, and Cat finally looked up from her computer into Kara’s smiling face. “You sounded stressed, I wasn’t sure you’d get a chance to get any dinner.”

As if on cue, Cat’s stomach growled, and Kara’s grin widened slightly in response. Rolling her eyes, Cat investigated the bag - a mediocre looking sandwich and a bag of peanut m&ms. She ignored the sandwich entirely and ripped open the m&m bag, dumping the treats into her empty water glass for easy access. She felt her shoulders relax a bit in response to the pampering, some small portion of stress melting away.

“Thank you Kara. This was…. thoughtful.” she admitted, sipping the latte. “I am stressed, I don’t like evenings when I can’t make it home to my son.”

“Well, you’ve still got about two hours until Carter goes to bed, let’s see what we can do to get you home before then.” Kara answered practically. “I’m at your service, Miss Grant - what needs to be done?”

Cat waved despairingly at the pile of paper on her desk. “More than I can possibly get through in a night, thanks to the incompetent buffoonery of my financial director. It’s going to take more than two hours just to go through all this and start to organize it, much less address any of it.”

Kara beamed brightly at her, which did _not_ strike Cat as the appropriate response. “Not if you have someone with super-speed to read through it for you! Why don’t you tell me what your system is, and I can start to organize this while you focus on getting through the most important paperwork.”

Kara was competent. It was interesting to watch - something about that sunny self-deprecation made Kara seem like she might be slightly bumbling in an office environment, but she listened to what Cat told her and caught on fast. Cat found herself glancing up slightly too often to watch Kara’s focused face as she read through the mess of paperwork, sorting it into the filing system Cat had outlined for her at almost a blurry pace. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, lower lip between her teeth. And all in service to Cat - not because it was her job, not because it served her in any way. Just because Cat needed it. It was - it was pampering, was what it was. It was the same impulse that had sent Kara off to buy her m&ms, the impulse to serve her and to soothe her. It felt luxurious. It made Cat want to purr, though she usually avoided feline wordplay.

Not even superpowers could get through the entire mess in the two hours before Carter needed to go to sleep, but they still got farther than Cat had expected to get on her own in the entire night. She dialed her son and said goodnight over the phone with the calm relief of knowing that the apocalyptic crisis had been downgraded to a mere nuisance, thanks to her personal superhero. She might even get a few hours of sleep.

“Why don’t we take a short break?” she suggested finally, pouring them each a glass of wine without waiting for Kara’s answer. She walked out onto her balcony confident that Kara would follow her.

They stood together in silence for awhile, looking out at the night sky. Surely, Cat mused, Kara Danvers had somewhere else to be tonight. Out saving the city, or clubbing with friends, or playing board games because picturing Kara in a club was laughable.

But Kara seemed entirely content to stay at Cat’s side, arms occasionally brushing when one of them took a sip of wine.

“Why are you here, Kara Danvers?” she murmured thoughtfully, and Kara sent her a puzzled glance.

“You did pour two glasses of wine,” she responded, sounding bemused. “I guess I just assumed the other one was for me…” Cat rolled her eyes in response, nudging Kara a little with her elbow in retaliation for deliberate obtuseness.

“Why are you in here as my unpaid minion when you could be out performing heroics, earning the adulation of the masses?”

“Well,” Kara responded in a thoughtful tone, “I am a hero, and you seemed like a damsel in distress… so I think it was my duty to save you, tonight.” Cat let gentleness fly out the window and elbowed Kara hard, watching her double over with laughter rather than pain.

But then she turned and looked at her more seriously. “Honestly Cat, I’m here because you were unhappy and I could fix it. That’s why I became Supergirl in the first place - and why I became a teacher before that. I want to help people, if I can. I want to help you.”

“Mmmm.” Cat hummed her agreement. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But you've gone above and beyond for me lately. I can’t help but wonder what you’d like from me in return.” She turned toward Kara, letting their faces stay a little too close - push people out of their comfort zone. Cat had an entire bag of journalist tricks for forcing confidences out of others.

“Wh-what are you offering?” Kara murmured back. Her eyes were wide, cheeks flushed, and Cat had exactly one moment to realize how completely Kara had misinterpreted her question - or had interpreted it exactly right, and when had Cat gotten so good at lying to herself anyways - before the distance between them closed, and Kara was pressing soft lips against her own.

It only lasted an instant, the brief impression of softness and warmth against her, of a lithe athletic body pressed up against her front, and then Kara pulled back, looking anxiously into her face for a reaction.

Whatever she saw must have reassured her that Cat wasn’t about to pitch her headfirst over the balcony. A small hopeful smile lit up her face, something different and bigger and deeper than that usual Sunny Danvers grin, and she raised a hand to Cat’s cheek, leaning back in -

Cat put out a hand. “Kara, stop.” She took a step back, making an effort to center herself, to keep her face blank and her eyes pointed somewhere over Kara’s shoulder. “I can’t.”  A deep breath, and then she steeled herself to look into Kara’s face. “I can’t do this with you. I’m sorry.”


End file.
